About Aarhus University

AU research wins engineering publisher's top prize

A crop storage sensor that can assist in the reduction of losses in warehouses has won publishing house Ingeniøren's main prize, the “product prize 2012”. The sensor stems from the research environment at Aarhus University.

2012.11.14

“Sensseed” is capable of measuring moisture and temperature in grains and seeds. Through this, shrinkage in warehouses might be significantly reduced. Photo: Webstech

Sensor technology firm Webstech, which has the former research leader at Aarhus University Ole Green at its head, has been going from success to success this last year. Numerous nominations and prizes have gone to the company's products, which originate in research projects carried out at Aarhus University.

The young company, which started up in 2009, became nationally renowned through participation in Danish Radio and the think tank Mondaymorning competition, where it came in second place and received the audience award.

The publishing house Ingeniøren gave Webtech additional praise Wednesday 7 November, when Ole Green received the top prize, the “product award 2012”, for the crop sensor Sensseed, which, in a nutshell, is capable of countering the destruction of crops and foods kept in storage.

The judging panel was enthused by the product's potential:

- Both the farmer, food processing and not least society can reap great rewards from a product that can seriously lower the farmer's energy usage, reduce food wastage on a global scale and thus reduce the growing food prices. If this succeeds, nobody will be able to afford not to use it, so the potential is incredible, was the judges’ verdict of the possibilities for the crop sensor.

In his acceptance speech, Ole Green praised dedicated and competent colleagues in his company who helped influence the development of the products. Additionally, he extended thanks to DLG and Kongskilde Industries, who earlier invested in the firm and enabled the winning product, Senseseed, to enter eight European markets.

-I am very proud to receive the prize. The competition has been the hardest to date, and it makes me extra proud that it is an engineering prize, as I am myself a trained engineer, explained Ole Green, and continued:

-These prizes and competitions have given me incredible exposure. At the same time, participation has given me an understanding of the fact that my products have many potential uses within industries that I had not thought of myself when developing them.

All in all, 62 products participated in Ingeniøren's competition, which had eight categories.